Spring as an emergent, self-organizing system

The melting from today’s warm temperatures was limited because there was no sun intensity. In fact, there was almost no sun at all. Township roads are really icy from the melt refreezing. But we’ll take it because it’s better than a polar vortex, right?

The dogs appreciate the warmer air and the melting because it’s less cold on their feet and the melt and moisture brings lots of different smells. My observation is that our two dogs would rather sniff than walk most of the time.

not this melted yet, soon?

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve been reading and thinking about what’s going on in the world and what it may all lead to. One book is by Rob Hopkins, the fellow who started Transition Towns in England. It’s titled From What Is to What If. Some of the research he cites is even more concerning than a daily social media doom scroll and scan of each day’s headlines. The amount of time we’re spending looking at screens, and their content, is diminishing our attention spans and creative thinking capacity. Maybe AI will solve that?

Another book is The Systems View of Life, A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi. It begins with a very helpful summary of scientific thinking starting about 1500. I suspect that the unifying vision part becomes a grand synthesis that pulls together and makes some sense of the disparate theories in the hard and soft sciences which have underlain world views for centuries. It makes me wonder if there’s any hope we’ll ever elect politicians with similar ambitions: synthesizing solutions rather than pursuing win-lose gambits.

That’s it for today. I’m trying to wean myself from spending too much time staring at a screen and haven’t yet considered drafting this with pen and paper before I type it up but that’s a possibility. Meanwhile, enjoy today’s poem.

BLK History Month

By Nikki Giovanni

If Black History Month is not

viable then wind does not

carry the seeds and drop them

on fertile ground

rain does not

dampen the land

and encourage the seeds

to root

sun does not

warm the earth

and kiss the seedlings

and tell them plain:

You’re As Good As Anybody Else

You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

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